Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) warned earlier this week it planned terror attacks in Florida and issued a list of names of Florida residents it intended to kill, according to a report.

Shoebat.com reported on the threat on June 9. The report said ISIL released a “hit list” containing more than 8,000 names, mostly Americans, including more than 600 residing in Florida.

SWAT members arrive at the scene of the fatal shooting at Pulse Orlando nightclub in Orlando, Florida. / AP

The “Backgrounder” in the May 9 edition of Geostrategy-Direct featured two reports headlined “Report: ISIL may target West as pressure mounts in Iraq, Syria” and “Obama’s slow response to ISIL has made it difficult to defeat”.

ISIL “is resorting more and more to mass-casualty violence as it comes under heavy pressure from multiple angles,” a terrorism expert was quoted as saying.

Terrorist Omar Mateen, who is said to have pledged allegiance to ISIL, killed 50 people and wounded more than 50 others in an attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando early on June 12.

The “United Cyber Caliphate” that hacked U.S. Central Command, 54,000 Twitter accounts and threatened President Barack Obama is the pro-ISIL group behind the “kill list” with the names, addresses and emails of thousands of Americans, the report said.

Reports of the list came to light online when Vocativ said the list was shared via the encrypted app Telegram.

Lawyer Stuart Kaplan, a former FBI agent, said the threat is “especially alarming,” as the people on this list are civilians “who don’t have the security necessary to protect themselves.”

According to a report in the current edition of Geostrategy-Direct, ISIL is reorganizing, lowering its profile and moving its operations underground amid heavy losses in Syria and Iraq. Intelligence analysts said the reorganization would focus more on mass casualty attacks on Western targets.

“Following territorial losses, we are seeing a steady upward trend in the tempo of Islamic State operations worldwide,” said a May 1 report by IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center.